[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Jaradu I'm no psychologist, but to me that sounds more like a crazy person who picked up a video game than a sane person who picked up a video game and turned crazy.

To paraphrase the quote added to Bungleau's list, playing games is fun, shifting blame is easy.

Every time this issue comes up, there are two clear cut responses - those that feel the games are not appropriate and those who like the games and say the kid who copied the game was crazy to begin with.

Look at the responses in this thread as an example. Every response from the game supporters say the same thing "this kid was crazy already if he tried to imitate a game". What they are really saying is "I LIKE playing this game (or others like it) and I don't want to risk losing a game I like to play."

Even if their assertions are true that "the kid was crazy to begin with", the company still bears a responsibility not to produce something that could encourage or lead a kid to reproducing the actions in the game.

It's really simple - produce games that do NOT depict illegal activities, assassinations, prostitution or violence against others and manufacturers don't have to worry if kids copy the actions from their games.

Originally Posted by Jaradu And who decides how to shape society and what to shape it into? What if some people disagree? How can you force artists to accept responsibility without denying them their right to artistic freedom?

Yorick already addressed this - the "right" to artistic freedom is NOT absolute, just as the right to free speech is not. Mass producing anti-social "art" is not an acceptable form of "artistic expression".